As night deepened, he whispered, "Don't run."

Just turned twenty, Shen Qining arrived alone in this unfamiliar city to study at a medical university, like a young beast trespassing into a forest of steel. She was smart, beautiful, yet deep in her bones she carried a stubbornness that would never turn back until it slammed into a wall. Almost everyone at the school kept their distance from Li Qingzhou—he was the kind of silver-spoon heir professors turned a blind eye to, with a prominent family and a background shrouded in mystery, his gaze perpetually cold as ice. Only with Shen Qining would he let down his guard, even revealing a trace of tenderness so faint it was barely noticeable—because she looked exactly like the younger sister he had lost years ago, the one family member he had never mentioned to anyone. The protectiveness he felt toward her, mixed with a near-obsessive possess…